Page:The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States (IA americanlanguage00menc 0).pdf/266

 lists of newspapers and periodicals that are using some, at least, of its revised spellings and of colleges that have made them optional, but an inspection of these lists shows that very few publications of any importance have been converted and that most of the great universities still hesitate. It has, however, greatly reinforced the authority behind many of Webster's spellings, and aided by the Chemical Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association, it has done much to reform scientific orthography. Such forms as gram, cocain, chlorid, anemia and anilin are the products of its influence.

Its latest list recommends the following changes:

When a word begins with æ or œ substitute e: esthetic, medieval, subpena. But retain the diphthong at the end of a word: alumnæ. When bt is pronounced t, drop the silent b: det, dettor, dout. When ceed is final spell it cede: excede, procede, succede. When ch is pronounced like hard c, drop the silent h except before e, i and y: caracter, clorid, corus, cronic, eco, epoc, mecanic, monarc, scolar, scool, stomac, tecnical. But retain architect, chemist, monarchy. When a double consonant appears before a final silent e drop the last two letters: bizar, cigaret, creton, gavot, gazet, giraf, gram, program, quartet, vaudevil. When a word ends with a double consonant substitute a single consonant: ad, bil, bluf, buz, clas, dol, dul, eg, glas, les, los, mes, mis, pas, pres, shal, tel, wil. But retain ll after a long vowel: all, roll. And retain ss when the word has more than one syllable: needless. Drop the final silent e after a consonant preceded by a short stressed vowel: giv, hav, liv. Drop the final silent e in the common words are, gone and were: ar, gon, wer. Drop the final silent e in the unstressed final short syllables ide, ile, me, ise, ite and ive: activ, bromid, definit, determin, practis, hostil. Drop the silent e after lv and rv: involv, twelv, carv, deserv.